The Exterminating Angel - Marked for Death
by theHuntgoeson
Summary: Inspired by the recent opera based on Luis Buñuel's classic film. Two women watch as the guests enter the house which will become their prison.


**A/N: I don't own anything except for the characters of the two watchers.**

 **This oneshot was inspired, not by Luis Buñuel's classic film "The Exterminating Angel" about a dinner party where the guests find themselves unable to leave the room, but by Thomas Ades' magnificent new opera based on it, which premiered in Salzburg in summer 2016, played in London earlier this year with the same jaw-dropping cast, and has since transferred to New York. Of necessity Tom Cairns' superb libretto for the opera omits, amalgamates and re-names some of Buñuel's characters, and my descriptions of some of the characters apply to the opera singers, not to the film actors.**

 **With cheers to everyone involved in the searing London performances and, with regard to the characters mentioned in this fic, especial acknowledgements to Sten Byriel, Ed Lyon and Sophie Bevan for their poignant portrayals of the three victims, the mighty Sir John Tomlinson, more a life force than a singer, as the Doctor, amazing Anne Sofie von Otter as the dying Leonora and the wondrous countertenor Iestyn Davies as the weakling Francisco.**

 **I don't know whether anyone will want to read this, but it wanted to be written!**

Nobody noticed the two gypsy women in a doorway at the corner of the Calle de la Providencia. Earlier in the day, a policeman had moved them on while they tried to sell lucky charms, but at this late hour they simply wanted a shelter for the night.

"Look, Mother." Ana pointed to a luxurious mansion a little way up the road. "Something is happening there."

"Ah..." Juana followed her daughter's gaze. Small clusters of people, some in servants' garb, were running out of the house and fleeing in blind panic. She concentrated all her mental powers on the place and sensed an entity which, for a moment, made her recoil in a terror which made her understand the servants' flight. She quickly collected herself. Whatever this Thing was, it could only entrap house-dwellers. Living in the open, she and her daughter were free of its influence.

"Mother?" She had been barely aware that Ana was speaking. "Mother? What is it?"

"You are right." She spoke tonelessly. "Something is happening."

"But what is it, and why are they running away?" Ana persisted.

"They are servants. Beasts of burden. Animals can always sense an oncoming disaster before their masters."

"Like rats leaving a sinking ship?"

"Just like that."

"But what _is_ it?"

"Something that entraps." She laid a hand on Ana's arm as the girl was about to scramble to her feet. _Has she sensed it, too?_ "Have no fear. It cannot harm us. Only them." She jerked her head towards the fleet of cars which were stopping outside the mansion and disgorging a series of richly dressed passengers, the men in faultless evening dress or dinner jackets with overcoats or opera cloaks with shiny top hats, the women in furs and brightly coloured gowns.

"Look at them. They go to their doom."

Ana's eyes were wide. "But can we not warn them?"

Juana shrugged. "Would those fine ladies and gentlemen listen to two muddy, houseless gypsies? Yet mark my words, my girl, soon their state will be worse than ours. We are free, but they will be imprisoned by _that_ \- that _thing_ in there. Unfelt, unseen, yet they will find no escape unless they find the pattern that can release them."

More fine people had gathered outside the house now, lingering for a moment in the warm evening air before going inside. She could count ten, twelve, fourteen of them. Juana studied the group again and caught her breath as she recognised the inescapable pall that hung over three of their number.

She pulled Ana close. "Look at them well. Three of them will not come out of that house alive. They are marked for death. Can you tell which they are?"

Ana's senses were spinning. Why should anyone die, and how was she to tell who they were? Would there be a murder in the house, and if so, why? Who would kill and be killed?

Her mother had spoken of imprisonment. Perhaps one of the group carried a sickness and they would be quarantined. She studied them to see who might most easily succumb to illness.

"Him." She pointed to a small, dapper, grey-haired gentleman with a charming smile, who was exchanging pleasantries with a beautiful young lady in a leopardskin coat.

"Why?"

"He looks the oldest."

"You are right," Juana said approvingly. "He will be the first to fall. But remember, it is not through age alone that people may succumb to this unseen enemy. Who else?"

Ana hesitated, confused. "Him. He is old, too." She pointed to a taller, bearded gentleman with a shock of white hair that reached to his shoulders.

Juana snorted. "Fool girl! Can you not sense the life force that flows through him? It shines from him like the sun. He is a healer, not a victim. He will be a fount of life and strength to his companions. More might die, were it not for him. Look again."

Ana frowned, looking at the small crowd, not knowing what she sought. "Her?" She pointed to a grey-haired woman in glittering green, who convulsively clutched a large handbag. "She looks ill."

"Yes, she has been marked for death," Juana conceded. "Soon, but not now, not here. You are still looking for two. Try once more, and remember what I said. _Not through age alone._ "

Ana looked at them again, considering her mother's words. "Him." She pointed to a small, languid youth with a certain feebleness of chin who kept close to a lovely lady in shimmering gold. Ana was not sure why, but he seemed to be _too_ close. "He looks weak."

"He is," Juana agreed. "His weakness and selfishness will be a heavy burden to his companions. But he will survive. He loves life and fears death too much to yield to it. He has yielded to a greater darkness already."

"What darkness, Mother?"

"That woman is his sister."

"His _sis_ \- " Ana felt overwhelmed by a primeval horror that dwarfed whatever power waited within the house.

"Watch," Juana persisted. "There are still two you have not found. Two who do not love life enough to fight for it, as that young fool will."

Suddenly Ana felt tired of guessing games. "Oh, Mother, how can I? Most of them have gone inside now, so how can I tell?"

"Those two." Juana's sharp finger pointed unerringly to two young lovers who had lingered behind the rest to share a final kiss and embrace before they joined their companions within. "They, too, are marked for death."

"Them?" Ana was incredulous. "But they have youth, health, strength, the chance of a bright future together. They have one another. They are in love."

"Yes," Juana said harshly. "They are _terribly_ in love. They care for no-one and nothing but one another. Not even for the world, not even for life. When they find themselves imprisoned with their companions, they will take no part in that small community. They will retreat into a world which is only the two of them, and from there they will descend together into the dark. They will die at their own hands to escape into the shadows."

"I cannot believe it." Ana gazed in pity at the tall, leanly handsome young man and the small, pretty blonde girl who were so completely absorbed in one another that they were lost to everything else in the world. "They have everything to live for."

"It is because of their love that they will die." Juana spoke with finality. "The young believe that love is life." Ana blushed and looked away. "But we who are older know that love is also the most destructive force in the world. Remember that, Ana. Always." In spite of herself, she shuddered. "Come. We will find somewhere else to sleep tonight."

Without another word the two women rose and stole away, unseen in the growing darkness, while behind them the doors of the great mansion clanged shut upon its victims.

 **THE END**


End file.
